Taipei government workers’ Internet dallying sparks furor

By Lin Shu-hui and Jason Pan / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Taipei City Government’s Beitou District Incineration Plant topped a list of city government agencies for playing computer games and using social media during office hours, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Hung Chien-yi (洪健益) said.

The plant used 180,000 kilobytes (kB) of the city government’s broadband traffic, followed by the city’s Parking Management and Development Office (more than 90,000kB) and the Department of Urban Development (more than 80,000kB), Hung said, based on figures from the city’s Department of Information Technology, which keeps track of the city government’s online network. The numbers were compiled from February to October last year.

Other city agencies using a high volume of network traffic for games and social media last year were the Sanitation Inspection Division of the Department of Environmental Protection, the Beitou District Office, the Wenshan District Office and the Songshan District Office, Hung added.

“Instead of working, Taipei bureaucrats are playing games and chatting on Facebook. The city government is also negligent in this by allowing such unwarranted activities to persist,” Hung said.

Taipei City Government Deputy Secretary-General Lin Wan-fa (林萬發) said it is wrong to play computer games during office hours and that he has asked the personnel department to investigate.

Han Ying-chun (韓英俊), head of the personnel department, said the city government has rules prohibiting playing games on office computers, and those who are caught receive at least an “admonition,” adding that the whole unit will be scrutinized more closely.

Hung said that employees at the Beitou Incineration Plant were playing online poker and other games, which caused the unit to have the highest computer network traffic last year.

Plant manager Fu Liang-chih (傅良枝) said employees on graveyard shifts play on the computer during off-peak hours, which caused the higher network use.

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